


Birdhouse

by JQ (musicmillennia)



Series: KillerWave Week 2016 [5]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Child Abuse, Chimeras, Deathstorm - Freeform, Dragons, F/M, Killer Frost - Freeform, Magic, Mentions of Suicide, Soulmates, Werewolves, but not in the traditional sense, you don't even wanna know how I arrived at this title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 16:12:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7179287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicmillennia/pseuds/JQ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Days 6+7: Magic and Soulmate AUs]</p><p>They say a person's creature depends on the host themselves: an embodiment of their soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birdhouse

**Author's Note:**

> Got this idea from a kids show I've been rewatching (don't suppose you've ever heard of Yu-Gi-Oh?) because I've been under a lot of stress lately and sometimes it's just fun to relive childhood memories, y'know?
> 
> As for the soulmate thing: the term's basically got two definitions: one is the traditional sense, and the other is synonymous with "roommate" since they have creatures living in their souls.
> 
> And for Day 5, that's one my jq-piccadilly tumblr under the tag "killerwave" if you wanted to see it. It's basically a long headcanon/fic hybrid thing.

Caitlin Snow’s first memory is not of her parents, a favorite toy, or even sunlight.

She’s in her crib late at night, clutching her feet and giggling, as is her favorite thing to do. Suddenly, she feels like she’s on fire—no, she’s freezing—no, fire—ice—fire—ice—yet before she can utter more than an alarmed whimper, there’s something at the other end of her crib.

It prowls towards her, a vague shape and uncolored, but very much alive. Its eyes gleam menacingly at the infant, but Caitlin only gurgles at them, going so far as to drop her feet and try to grab them.

Voices, muddled and unestablished, begin to speak.

“She’s beautiful,” says one, vaguely male.

“I’d kill for her,” agrees the other, vaguely female.

They obediently snuggle up to her, a tiny two-headed thing, and Caitlin laughs with delight.

Her second memory is of her mother screaming and calling her a _thing_.

* * *

After her mother commits suicide about five years after first seeing them, Caitlin’s soul fully manifests.

A two-headed dragon emerges from her chest to look at the corpse of Catherine. Their shared body is a giant flame kept in its shape by a layer of flexible, leathery ice. The left head has carefully blank pale eyes, thick furry ruff as white as snow over crystalline fractal scales. The right head has no pupils at all, made of completely white flame, spiked horns curving sharply in front of his head, orange and white against sharp obsidian scales.

Only the fire head has a vicious dark wing; the ice’s side is bare.

Their forelegs are longer than their hind, pushing them into a straight-backed sitting position that somehow looks like they’re poised to attack at the same time. The longer they look at Catherine, prone in the bathtub, the more frightened Caitlin becomes.

She thinks to herself, _Mom was right._

The instant she does, they round on her, eyes narrowing.

They tell her, in perfect unison, “We are not a _thing_.”

“Put your hand on your chest,” orders the fire. Caitlin’s too scared to disobey. “Feel that? That’s your heartbeat.”

“You are alive,” hisses the ice, “you breathe, you think, you feel.”

The fire snarls, “Does that sound like a _thing_ to you?”

Trembling, Caitlin stumbles away from the monster until her back slams against the wall. But they slither after her, taking her small hand in both talons and pressing it to their own chest.

Cold fire burns Caitlin’s hand, but leaves no marks on her skin. Her widening eyes take in a sudden bright blue light under her touch—a beating, fierce and determined.

“Does _that_ sound like a thing to you?” the ice reiterates.

The child shakes her head.

“Then give us our names.”

When Caitlin doesn’t answer, the ice snaps her jaws, adding, “Catherine would have killed us if she didn’t kill herself. We deserve to live, Caitlin—we deserve _names_.”

For that, Caitlin names her Killer Frost. She looks at the chaotic flame swirling in the fire’s mouth and names him Deathstorm.

They give her savage grins and wrap her in their tail.

“We won’t leave you,” Deathstorm promises, “and whoever does deserves to die.”

To this day, Caitlin still doesn’t know if she felt more relieved or terrified when she placed her head against their beating light.

That’s usually all her subconscious deems to torture her with at night.

* * *

Mick Rory doesn’t know what to make of his soul.

Obviously he knows _what_ they are—he looked it up and everything. Chimera: lion and ram heads, lion paws for the front, ram hooves for the back, and a fuckin’ _snake_ growing out their ass. But _why_ he has them for a soul is what’s bugging him.

They’ve got wings though, which is pretty cool. And they pick their own names, which is pretty convenient: the lion likes Ronnie, the ram Jax, and the snake Stein. They chose full names, but those are what Mick calls ‘em.

Ronnie’s got a black mane that kinda looks like Scar from _The Lion King_ , which is awesome ‘cause Scar’s one of Mick’s favorite Disney villains as a kid—mostly ‘cause of the song he gets—while Jax’s eyes look eerily close to a human’s. Stein is an odd one: he calls himself a desert viper, and while he has the horns and markings, he’s made of variant gray shades, prompting Jax’s nickname Gray.

Also, Jax and Ronnie breathe fire. _Awesome_.

But for all that, Mick’s still stuck on the _why_. See, the three of them like to help people. For all their intimidation, they’re _good_ to the core. Stein’s even a voice of reason, constantly trying to guide Ronnie and Jax, which is both annoying an astonishing because that would mean Mick’s soul is _reasonable_ as it is impulsive and volatile. They wanna save the world, do all this good stuff, while Mick’s burning things and engaging in petty theft.

The only thing they have in common, Mick thinks, is their fire. How can his chimera be _his_ , then?

His mother, though, she’s as beautiful and lovely as her snow owl. Her soul has big blue eyes, easily the prettiest Mick’s ever seen on a creature, with a gentle lilt to her calls. Minerva’s her name, and she’s always allowed to perch on any part of Ronnie, Jax, and Stein. Claire Rory herself is far more deserving of the goodness that stems from her son’s soulmate: she’s a witch with a connection to Nature that runs deep and pure, her magic woven with care into every charm and poppet she makes. She never keeps one for herself, but for other people, that they may be helped in any way she can assist them.

She dances to Captain and Tennille in the kitchen while she bakes, and more often than not pulls Mick in for a dance. She’s light as a nymph on her feet where Mick’s uncoordinated and heavy on the floor.

He calls her “Mother” out of respect. “Dad” is a flippant title to him, a meaningless slang.

Claire’s always out when Nathan drags their son to the cellar. It’s cold, dark, and feels like a stone coffin to Mick, way too tiny and suffocating. Doesn’t matter if he’s five, ten, fifteen—he still whimpers and beats his head with his fists for turning to the fire again, for disobeying, even though he knows his dad is a lying piece of shit.

Although, Mick can’t disagree with a couple things. He knows he ain’t that smart, just like he knows he probably won’t amount to much. He knows he’s nothing without his fire. And he knows that the chimera in his soul is too rare and precious a creature for someone like him.

Still doesn’t give Nathan the right to do what he does.

“’Specially ‘cause it’s _not true_ ,” Jax bleats. Mick’s sixteen now, and his chimera’s stuck in the cellar with him. Again. “You’re smarter than you think. You might be turnin’ into a criminal, but you’re not a bad guy.”

Mick doesn’t know whether he murdered his parents just to spite Jax or to prove himself right.

He doesn’t blame them for going quiet.

* * *

Many years later, as Caitlin’s strapped to a chair and Snart’s gone out for a bit to finalize a few things, she and Mick get to talking.

Rather, she spits insults at him and he admires the way one of her eyes gleam pale ice and the other is made of white hot flame.

“You got quite the soul there,” he says.

The good doctor’s hair turns white. She snaps, in a voice whispering with ice, “Shame you trapped it—you could see just how _gorgeous_ they are.”

Mick can’t call himself a witch since he’s violated the Harm None rule countless times, but he’s got some kinda magic in him. The symbols painted on his captive’s chest are pretty powerful if he does say so himself.

“They, huh? I got a they too—well I did, anyway.” Mick shrugs, “Went silent a long time ago.”

“Why am I not surprised?” she bites back, reminding Mick of Ronnie with the way she snaps her teeth. Her having the gall to remind him of what he pushed away pisses him off.

Putting on his worst grin, he crouches next to her and flicks on his lighter. “See that?” he says. Her eyes, now human brown but inhumanly cold, regard the flame as if it’s nothing. Mick snarls, “This was worth more to me than their ramblings about _helping people_. I ain’t a hero, lady, and this right here’s all I need. If I lose my soul to get it, then that’s fine with me.”

He’s filled with vindictive pleasure when she recoils. But that doesn’t last when she murmurs, “Mine would get along well with you.”

Mick snorts, “Goody two-shoes like you? Your little show talks a big game, but I’m pretty sure you got a little rabbit in you.”

“Then why did you bind them?”

“’Cause even a little rabbit can run fast. Snart likes a dramatic entrance; we wouldn’t wanna take that from him, would we?”

Caitlin’s sneer looks all wrong on her face. “He’ll drop you the second he’s done with you.”

Mick believes that too, but he snorts and tells her the same lie he feeds himself: “Didn’t you see his soul? Lisa’s somethin’ else, but werewolves are pack animals, Doc. We go our separate ways sometimes, but I’m parta that pack.”

After that, she just…stares. Makes Mick uncomfortable, actually.

“What?” he snaps.

She shakes her head. “It’s just—why do you act like you’re nothing but a dumb piece of muscle when you—”

He interrupts, “I’m about to strap you to a bomb, and you’re askin’ personal questions?”

Her eyes blaze again. Like she said, it’s gorgeous. Mick enjoys the show while he can.

* * *

When Heatwave and Captain Cold square off against The Flash, Caitlin Snow is there.

Now freed, her soul is breath-taking. They stand as tall as Central’s skyscraper. Caitlin must be one helluva woman to have something so enormous inside her thin body.

“What’s that saying?” Killer Frost teases, “Revenge is best served cold?”

She’s even worse than Snart and Mick fucking adores her.

Then Deathstorm speaks. And everything. Stops.

“I’ll get him warmed up for you.”

He sounds exactly like Ronnie.

There’s a thing behind that. If your creature—or one of their heads—has the same voice, soulmate gets a whole other definition. It’s rare, only happens maybe twice in the entire world every century, and Mick-fucking-Rory’s got it.

Mick starts laughing.

He burned his mother alive. Tied his soulmate to a bomb. Fuck does he deserve to die.

Caitlin glares at him from across the way. Killer Frost pouts, “Baby, get him to shut up.”

“With pleasure,” Deathstorm grins.

Mick tosses his gun aside and steps forward. It’d be an honor to be cleansed by his soulmate’s dragon. He figures it’s the least he can do.

Ronnie claws them out too late.

Caitlin falls to her knees.

**Author's Note:**

> LOL WHOOPS ;D
> 
> If you're wondering:  
> Cisco: raven, Vibe  
> Barry: griffin (think British heraldry version, male, though Barry's is a female) Patty  
> Ray: unicorn, Felicity (is capable of Kirin form)  
> Sara: banshee, Laurel  
> Rip: Fury, Miranda. Lost. Side note, Jonah actually rips part of his creature apart so they can share, because his phoenix has the same voice as Miranda's.  
> Carter: avian, Kendra (separated via Savage being a dick and that's why Carter also seems like a vacant dick when we first meet him)  
> Joe: centaur, Henry (both think of Barry as their son, even though Barry never knew his real father in this 'verse)  
> Iris: pixie, Shawna (means well but can also actually be mean)
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
